Rotterdam's city government has reported the former director of the Rotterdam Port Authority, Willem Scholten, and business tycoon Joep van den Nieuwenhuijzen to the police, NOS radio reports. The local government was acting on the suspicion that Mr Van den Nieuwenhuijzen bribed the port director.

Suspicions were aroused when a report was published by the fiscal policing service, FIOD. It had been investigating for years whether the former director of the Rotterdam Port Authority was involved in fraud. It had become clear earlier that Mr Scholten had guaranteed bank loans to Mr Van den Nieuwenhuijzen's company RDM with a value opf 150 million euros. RDM later went bankrupt.

In his defence, Mr Scholten said he had issued the guarantees in the interest of Rotterdam harbour.

Rotterdam's mayor Ahmed Aboutaleb told the press that new findings indicate that Mr Scholten may have accepted bribes. In a separate court case that has not been concluded yet, business tycoon Van den Nieuwenhuijzen was charged with fraudulent bankruptcy.

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